FED for the Con Man

The Federal Reserve just announced it would, together with other central banks in the world, inject another US$200 billion into the financial market. Read US$ is going down and down and down, and inflation will go up and up and up!

They claim it is an effort to avoid a recession, but the fact is they are trying to rescue the rascals, the con men in the finanical industry, whose greed grew too big, and too unlucky that they still had all the shit that they wanted to sell to the fools.

No doubt it is true the stability of the financial market is important, but don't forget the fundamental principle of capitalism. Capitalism will only be successful if it is truly market driven. What Ah Ben is doing is just to delay the market's self regulation. Would this mean the bad guys won't be punished by the market force? No! Ah Ben is just blowing up the bubble to make it bigger, so that when the bubble bursts, the pain will be bigger, too.

So what Jim Rogers predicted was right. He said the US$ would continue to decline, and he would move all his assets out of US. What a smart move. Had he not done that, he would be sitting on huge paper loss, or huge piles of useless green paper, not even good enough to be used as toilet paper :D

Beginning of A New Era - Malaysia General Election 2008

Today, when Malaysians woke up in the morning, they would find a new era had just begun. The ruling party Barisan National lost its 2/3 majority which it had held for the past 40 years! To make things worse, they also lost 4 states to the opposition parties, Penang, Kedah, Selangor, and Perak. Kelandan, a state that had been under opposition PAS rule for the past, remains a strong hold of PAS.

These results are totally unexpected to most. Very few even imagined that BN would lose this much. What has changed that led to such surprising results?

There are a couple of reasons, in my own opinion:

1. A generation of younger voters are voting in this GE. They accounted for about 25% of the eligible voters. Many of them are better educated, with easy access to information from the internet. Old-fashioned media manuplation does not work very well to those voters. The opposition obviously noticed this and they set up internet blog sites to communicate their ideology to the young voters. BN didn't seem to understand or know how to use the new information technology much. They still sticked to the old way.

2. Inflation. It is a global phenomenon, but it is more severe in Malaysia. Inflation affects Malays more than other ethnic groups such as Chinese and Indian. Malay is the core support group of the ruling BN, yet BN didn't take good care of their supporters. What do you think then?

3. The Anwar factor. The former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, who had been put into jail for crimes that sounds suspicious, has become a powerful factor in helping his wife's party, the PKR to win support from the Malays.

4. The lack of development in Malaysia. Many Malaysians are commenting Malaysia is not moving forward, on the contrary, it is moving backward. This is particularly obvious in previously industry heavy state of Penang. With the rise of China and India, many MNCs are moving their manufacturing facilities away from Penang. At national level, there are not many major developments. From my personal experience, Malaysia is not getting better, but worse. In the past, Malaysia was still attractive because things were cheap there. People could have a good life there even though they didn't have much money. Now with the rising inflation, prices rises in almost every single aspect of life, people are feeling the pinch. For a foreigner like me, it is not attractive at all to shop in Malaysia. In addition, the crime rate is high. People don't feel safe in the streets.

This GE served as a wake-up call to the ruling BN. It is not a bad thing. I only pity PM Adullah, who had been under heavy attack by former PM Dr. M. Life for PM Adullah will be hard in the days ahead. He has to work twice, thrice as hard as before to get his country back on the right course.

This GE is not only a good lesson for Malaysia, it is also a good lesson for those who had been the ruling power for the past many many years. They must respect the power and will of the people. Those in power must understand that they are the SERVANTS of the people of the country, not MASTERS! A well respected Chinese Emperor Li Shi-min (李世民）once said "water can keep the boat float, it can also capsize the boat", meaning people can bring you to power, but they can also bring you down.

32" LCD Monitor

Got a 32" LCD TV set recently. Today, I tried to use it as my computer monitor. It is BIG! And that is about all. It is too big for you to sit close to it, but the words on screen are too small for you to see clearly.

Nice to use it to watch movies from my laptop, but using it for photo editing? Mmmmmh........ Not very sure. You need to sit close to see the details, which are critical when it comes to photos. I am amazed by the technology advancement. How much of our life is now revolving around our computer.

Strange Things Happened to My Air-Con

I came back home and had big surprised today. The moment I opened my door, I felt a bit cold in the living room. It is not very normal to feel cold in the flat considering I am living in a tropical country without winter. I thought the cold air from last night was trapped in the flat as I didn't open the windows or doors.

I walked around in the flat, still feeling very strange, as it had that feel the air-con was on. I checked the air-con unit in my room. No, it was off. As I walked into the next room, I was horrified. The air-con was blowing full force! No wonder even the floor tiles in the living room were ice-cold.

I don't know how the air-con would turn on on its own. My flatmate didn't turn it on. I didn't turn it on. So who else would have turned it on?

In my previous flat, my former flatmates also told me sometimes the air-con in their rooms would turn on on their own, although I had never encountered that before myself. It is freaking. At SGD$0.50 per hour, I don't know how long the air-con had been turned on without anyone at home, and the amount of money, electricity had been wasted.

Anyone has similar experience before?

Venice

My blog has been dull these days. Let me brighten it up a bit today by bringing you to the drawing room of Europe! Where is it? It is Venice, of course, where else? :D

You can never miss the bridge of sighs when you are visiting Venice. It is just as famous as the waterways and the bridges across the grand canal. Flocks of tourists are crowding the bridge with a good view of the bridge of sighs.

Next is the Pinto Rialto. It is one of the only 3 bridges that cross the grand canal. As you can see, it is a major tourist attraction.

And of course, you must see the waterways in Venice, the water city. Water has this magic power of making people feel romantic and warm and soft, just like a girl. The yachts and gondolas remind you there are lots of rich people in this world, which is not a bad thing.

Finally, an aerial view of St Marco's square, with the domes of St Marco in sight.

I hope you enjoy this short virtual tour of Venice.

Over-Crowded Buses/Trains and Spare Capacity

There has been quite some complaints about buses and trains being too crowded ever after all the taxi companies in Singapore raised their fares. However, the bus companies & train companies claim they still have quite a lot of spare capacity with the current load.

Why is there a difference in what people feel and what the transportation companies claim then? I did a simple calculation the other day while taking a bus. That bus was said to be over-crowded by my colleague, but I looked at the loading capacity. For a double-decker bus, the lower deck has a standing capacity of 41 persons. On that day, there were only about 30 persons standing, yet we already felt a bit squeezed. If we want to fill to the full capacity of 41 persons, we will have to pack like sardin fish. That is the difference. Comparing our trains with those in Japan, probably our trains are not really that crowded or jam-packed, yet.

Noise, Noise, Noise...

Noise, noise, noise. We have to live with noise every day. Ever since I moved into this new flat, I am getting more and more used to living with noise. As the flat is right beside a main road and a MRT track, so it is something that is inevitable, and hence I am kind of an 'expert' on noise.

Basically there are three types of noise, or four if you count the minor one as well.

1st type of noise is, of course, from the MRT train. It has a deep bass, and sounds like a cow. The frequency actually is not that high. The noise will stop after midnight and begins again around 5.30 in the morning. You know it is about time to wake up and get to work:D

2nd type of noise is from cars, lorries, trucks and buses. Out of all these, buses seem to have the worst noise performance. You can hardly miss the passing by of a bus. It is followed by the cabs. Cabs make higher frequency noises, and it is less bearable to human ears (means, my ears). It gets quite irritating when a cab passes by in the wee hours of the day.

3rd type of noise, and the worst of all, is the noise from motorbikes. It sounds like a musical instrument that has been badly manufactured, poorly tuned, but with a loud speaker attached. If you measure the harmonic distortion, properly you can find all the high frequency harmonics. Is this noise avoidable? I must say YES! In the 1st world country, with a 1st world garment, and people in white at the helm, I don't believe it can't be done. Yet, nobody has done anything to it. We can only train our poor ears to tolerate the distasteful noise.

4th type is household noise. I can hear the guy upstairs using his/her toilet, flushing the toilet, pour water onto the floor. Can I complain about the guy upstairs? Of course not! Why? Properly the guy downstairs can the noise I make when I pee, too! Our world class building board builds homes with paper thin walls, but yet still can sell the match boxes at a premium price.

Traffic Jam of A Life Time

Today I witnessed the traffic jam of a life time. When I passed by Kranji MRT station at around 6pm, all the lorries, trucks, and sedans came to a stand-still on the road leading to the Woodlands check-point. Then at around 9pm, when I passed by Kranji MRT station again, there was absolutely no improvement at all, if it didn't become worse. The traffic light near Kranji MRT station became almost completely useless. Red light, green light or whatever light, the cars still had to stay where they were. There was no room to move.

Wow, what a spectacular scene! What happened? All because of one single person lah. Who is the guy that can caused so much trouble? His name is Mas Selama Kastari, the head of JI in Singapore. He escaped from a detention centre Wednesday afternoon. Guess what, he couldn't even walk properly, as he was described to be 'limping'. My gosh, our 'high quality' security force, police force, or whatever force, with world class leadership, world class ministers, world class blah blah.. yet, a 'limping' man could still escape under broad daylight. What a joke! Now after 3 days, he is still at large. Some heads MUST ROLL TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for this serious mistake.

Even since then, traffic through Woodlands checkpoint had been slow. Officers check every single car. Hundreds of police officers and Gurkha guards had been deployed to search for this wonderful man.

Wow, until then, do even think of going to Malaysia through Woodlands checkpoint, unless you want to be caught into a massive traffic jam.